Olive Oil Cake

On Saturday I made an olive oil cake using Alice Waters' recipe in her dessert book. It was very simple to make, though I didn't have any real Sauternes and used an inferior dessert wine. Maybe next time I'll try it with my cousin Peggy's Limoncello, or even with some of the lemon verbena sugar syrup plus some white wine. It was terrific with some homemade ice cream, both strawberry and peach. More on that, after I take a picture!

Lemon Verbena

One of my lemon verbena plants (foreground in picture) has gotten quite big, so I decided to prune it. But what to do with the leaves? I looked online and did not find many recipes for lemon verbena but did discover one for lemon verbena sugar syrup, which I made. Now I have about a cup of the sugar syrup, some of which will go into iced tea. I may try some of the leaves in my salad tonight, or maybe in a green sauce for some tuna we’re grilling. I think it will have to be chopped very fine, as the leaves are tough.

Stay tuned for more…